


“i want you to have this.”

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [76]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Ballroom Dancing, Best Friends, F/F, F/M, Parties, Teasing, friendly bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25534261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Hazel Wong is attending a ball when a handsome man in a rather ludicrous teal coat catches her eye - a pity that he's the one attendee that her father strictly prohibited her from courting.Royalty AUWritten for the seventy-sixth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Alexander Arcady/Hazel Wong, Amina El Maghrabi/Daisy Wells, Daisy Wells & Hazel Wong
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [76]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	“i want you to have this.”

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat/gifts), [WritesEveryBlueMoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritesEveryBlueMoon/gifts).



“That Rajasthani prince is looking at you.”

“What?” I mumble around a mouthful of cake, turning to Daisy with my fingers covered in chocolate.

Seizing my upper arm, she points across the ballroom to where two young men are standing against a tapestry of a Chinese dragon, one holding a champagne flute, the other a cocktail. The prince that Daisy pointed out is dark and rakishly handsome in a white silk sherwani with golden and red decorations along the edges, and a dramatic red turban. Talking to him is a taller and broader boy, with tan skin and ruffled blond hair, wearing a teal silk coat embroidered with flowers over one shoulder and snaking down across the chest and to the hem. 

Daisy sees where I’m looking and rolls her eyes. “Really?”

_ Of course _ Daisy noticed, my clever and attentive best friend who never misses when someone catches my eye. I feel myself flush, knowing that it’s spreading in unattractive blotches up my neck and turning my ears quite red. “Why shouldn’t I stare?” I bluster weakly, my gestures flimsy. 

“Watson,  _ please _ , he looks like a stock photo.”

“Daisy!” I reply, incensed that she can’t see it.

“He’s as sexy as a business transaction!” she protests, and one of the waiters muffles a laugh as he sweeps past me.

“Eyeing the duke, Miss Hazel?” he inquires in a whisper, and I realise that it’s Ah Lan, his head ducked down and nondescript in his red jacket, buttoned up to his neck, and a plate balanced on his hand.

Realising that Ah Lan seems to  _ know  _ something about the handsome blond, I instantly turn to accost him. I’m a little more confident when I’m speaking Cantonese to my family’s servants. “Who is he, Ah Lan?” I ask in a rushed whisper.

Even though I’m speaking Cantonese, Daisy knows exactly what I want to know. “Hazel, he’s the Duke, from the Colonies. If you had  _ listened  _ when I was pointing everyone out to you earlier…”

“You said about a million words, excuse me for not taking in all of them!” I retort, and then my annoyance dies in my throat as I remember. “He’s the one that my father told me specifically not to fraternise with, isn’t he?”

Daisy nods slowly, looking as if she is about to burst out laughing. “Exactly.” Taking a champagne flute from Ah Lan’s tray, she loops her arm through mine and leads me across the ballroom to where the others are standing.

By the enormous windows at the north end of the ballroom, Beanie and Lavinia are trying to blend into the tapestry and making a rather terrible job of it. Beanie is wearing a blush-coloured ball gown, layers and layers and layers of beautiful floating lace with ruffles, the skirt brushing the floor and fanning out around her. Her expression is one of discomfort, and I know it’s because of the beautiful vintage updo that her dark hair is in, likely waxed beyond what is reasonable to hold its shape with her nervous jittering. The matching pink bow probably doesn’t help matters.

“This is the worst,” Beanie complains, leaning back against the windowsill and eating one of the delicate cakes from a plate that they’ve brought over from the buffet. She puts it into her mouth and chews with a sulky look on her face.

Comparable to Beanie, Lavinia looks like she wants to die or kill everyone else, whichever she feels most like the moment she manages to sneak one of the display katanas off the wall. After Daisy’s birthday ball, at which she caused an enormous scandal by turning up in a  _ suit _ , Lavinia has resigned herself to a modest silk dress, blood red with a lace bodice and plain skirt. Despite the fact that it is decidedly  _ not  _ the lemon yellow atrocity that she was wearing when we met her at the Chancellor’s wedding when she was eleven, she looks decidedly more bitter than she did then.

When I look her dress up and down, Lavinia growls, “Don’t look at me.”

I don’t.

Daisy presses herself against my side and sips from her champagne flute, though it does ruin her aesthetic of the perfectly uninterested princess as she glances around the room, trying to spot the duke that I was eyeing. “Someone caught Hazel’s eye.”

Beanie gasps and grabs my arm. “Who?”

Gesturing with her champagne flute, she says, “Alexander Arcady, in the teal suit.”

“Oh, next to that prince Lavinia thinks is handsome!” Beanie gasps, clasping her hands together, utterly oblivious to Lavinia burying her face in her hands.

“His dad is some miner, I think,” Lavinia says eventually, talking about the handsome blond boy, whom Daisy has now named ‘Alexander Arcady’.

Nudging me with her elbow, Daisy raises a teasing eyebrow and says, “Sexy as a business transaction.”

I shove her.

Kitty swans over in her beautiful dark blue ballgown, flecked with gold and her beautiful hair cascading down her back in curls that I watched her spend hours getting exactly right. “Just in, the Catalonian prince is like a cardboard cutout of an interesting person.”

“That bad?” Daisy drawls.

Taking the half-empty champagne flute from her, Kitty drapes herself against the wall and sighs. “Daisy, I wish I had your dress.”

“I think every girl at this ball wishes that.”

“I don’t!”

We all dissolve into laughter at Lavinia’s flippant comment, but I can’t help jealously looking at Daisy’s dress again. Her neckline is sheer and sharp, and the bodice, sleeves, and top half of the skirt are fashionably embroidered with beautiful gold, and threaded with gemstones that are pinpricks under the light. The rest of the skirt is dramatic and beautiful feathers that sweep the ground and dazzle everybody as she swans across the room. 

“Cut it out, Hazel,” she says, though there’s no bite to the soft statement as she takes my hand. “You look lovely.”

I’ve made an effort to look good, that I can agree with. I’m wearing a pale blue cheongsam with dark edging, patterned with flowers and songbirds on branches singing into the sky. Daisy comments on all of this as she describes my outfit to me, before relaxing back against the wall and pressing her arm against mine, the feathers from her dress brushing my ankle.

Daisy tells Kitty that someone has caught my eye, in the same exact tone as when she told the others, and I cringe as Kitty peers where Daisy points. “Teal coat?”

I nod, sure that I’m terribly red in the face.

“He could, like,  _ get it _ ,” Kitty tells me seriously, and I throw out my hands in exasperation.

“ _ Right _ ?!”

Turning her disbelieving stare on Daisy, she says, “Daisy, you were teasing her about this? His jaw could cut  _ bread _ .”

“So could a bread knife but you don’t see me being attracted to a bread knife, do you?” she retorts, taking another champagne flute from a passing waiter.

“His jawline could cut  _ a bitch _ ,” Kitty reiterates.

Daisy, gesticulating wildly but somehow managing not to spill her full glass of champagne, says, “ _ So could a bread knife _ .”

They glare at each other for a moment. 

“I did,” Kitty says, flourishing the glass that was formerly Daisy’s, “find out that the Sheik’s daughter is coming—you know, Amina El Maghrabi?”

Daisy rolls her eyes. Amina was invited to Daisy’s birthday ball and utterly stole the show, even distracting from Lavinia’s dramatic scandal. For the entire night, my best friend cast her sour looks that Beanie, Kitty, and Lavinia thoroughly echoed. At the end of the night, we became something akin to friends, but there is still a spark of bitterness there. “Oh joy, maybe she’ll steal the show  _ again _ .”

I sigh and focus on Ah Lan across the room, doing some impressive conversational gymnastics to get away from Rose’s flirtatious friends accosting him next to the cake display.

Then Amina El Maghrabi swans into the room and Daisy  _ stops breathing.  _ Her arm freezes against mine, and she brings her other hand up to her mouth in barely concealed shock. “Oh.”

“Is this Princess Martita all over again?” I ask her, but she doesn’t seem able to talk.

“Princess Daisy!” cries Amina, swanning across the room in her beautiful saree and taking Daisy’s hand to kiss it. “How lovely to see you!”

Daisy quite rudely pulls her hand away. “How are you, Amina?”

“Marvellous, thank you! How about yourself?”

Still rather pink in the face, she shrugs and leans back against the wall. “Hazel,” she says, and her voice is rather oddly high-pitched, “that Rajasthani prince is staring at you again.”

“His name is George Mukherjee,” Kitty supplies because  _ of course  _ she knows. “His father is an advisor to the king.”

This time, I catch him. His dark eyes are fixed right onto mine, and he doesn’t duck his head down out of embarrassment when I notice. Instead, he boldly stares right at me before handing his drink to the handsome boy and making his way over to me.

The others all pointedly look away, talking to each other in a hurry to take attention away from them and shove it onto me. Amina and Daisy fall into talking to each other and my best friend looks utterly furious about it.

“Lovely cheongsam, Hazel Wong,” he says, and his accent is startlingly the same as Kitty’s. “May I dance with you?”

“I… of course,” I reply with stuttering awkwardness, holding out my hand and letting him take it.

He whirls me onto the dance floor and I want to melt because people are  _ looking  _ at us. However, George Mukherjee is charming and smooth-talking Duke, and an excellent dancer. There is no pull between us, but it’s a good dance with a nice boy. The sort my father would approve of. “I noticed that you were talking with Daisy Wells.”

“Of course, she’s my best friend,” I reply, and almost fall out of step.

“And Amina El Maghrabi.”

“Do you have your eye on her?” I ask, feeling his hand on my back guiding me into a spin. I let him spin me out and back in, and put my hand on his shoulder again.

Chuckling, he glances over and says, “What does it matter? Seems like Daisy Wells herself has her eye on her. Ladies first, given that I’m a gentleman.”

I look over his shoulder at Daisy and he’s not wrong: Daisy and Amina are pressed up against the tapestry, deep in conversation with their heads dipped together and their hands, both holding glasses, almost brushing.

“You might just be right,” I reply, smiling up at him. He is  _ far _ too close for comfort and I am afraid that he might kiss me. “Um… who’s your friend?”

“Oh, you mean Alex?” He chuckles and looks over at the boy in the teal coat, who is absorbed in conversation with a rather beautiful-looking duchess who I know to be from France. “He’s been sneaking glances at you all night.”

I really  _ do  _ stumble out of shock then, and George lets go of my hand to put his on my waist, steadying me and stopping a humiliating fall. “I thought that  _ you  _ had been looking at me!”

“I kept glancing over at you whenever he did, but I have a far more piercing gaze.” His confidence is almost Daisy-ish. “Say, I think that Alex has just gone up to the balcony. You know, if you want to follow.”

The glitter in his eye is incredibly similar to Daisy’s the moment that she noticed the colourful Duke that caught my eye. “Oh. If you’re alright with stopping the dance.”

“Come back with some contact with Alex and maybe I’ll forgive you,” he teases, twirling me out again and letting go out of my hand abruptly, leaving me in the middle of the dance floor, staring at the door and feeling just a little bit idiotic.

* * *

I take the stairs up to the balcony, breathing hard by the time I get to the top. My hair, though previously up in a tight twist, is rather bedgraggled, strands having escaped and floating around my head. “Hello?”

He starts and turns, smiling and blushing when he sees me. “Oh! Hazel Wong, lovely to meet you.”

“You too. I just had a lovely dance with your best friend,” I tell him, walking to stand beside him.

“I’m hoping that George’s charms didn’t steal the show, because I would quite like a dance with you as well.” He is so incredibly forward that I feel myself blush, and I have to look away.

“I’d… I’d like that.”

He smiles at me, and I have to look away again because it’s bright enough to make my heart beat loud enough that I’m sure he can hear it.

“You’re pretty.”

“Thank you. You’re… handsome. I like your coat.”

Chuckling, he says, “Would you believe me if I told you that  _ George _ picked it out?”

“The same person wearing the subdued warm colours and that excellent turban?” I tease. “Why, I think you’re lying!”

He laughs, and then we both burst into giggles that are hard to subdue, until our arms brush against each other and his face is  _ so close to mine _ .

“Is this a bad time to mention that you are the one person that my father specifically told me to refuse the romantic courting advances off because he doesn’t like the way that  _ your _ father operates?”

“ _ I  _ don’t like the way my father operates,” he replies, and we make eye contact that is  _ blue and blue and blue and blue _ , and he smiles at me so warmly that I feel like I’ve been lit on fire.

“HAZEL!” my father roars from halfway up the stairs, and we spring apart as if we have been burnt.

“Shit!” Alexander hisses, and he glances to the edge of the balcony. “Say, reckon that I can make the jump to that chimney?”

I look down, and I hear my father’s heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. “If you’re ready to take the chance that you might break something, you could probably make it to the kitchen chimney.”

“Brilliant, I’ve always wanted to feel like a detective from a novel.”

* * *

Daisy has so many questions for me when I go back down that she loses her breath trying to ask them. Although I beg Beanie for help with my eyes, she only giggles and continues whispering to Kitty. Lavinia doesn’t offer assistance either.

I’m still halfway through relaying the balcony scene (and ignoring the Romeo and Juliet references that Daisy interrupts with every other syllable) when Alexander walks across the room to me, holding up a torn piece of letter paper that has been hastily scrawled upon with a blotchy fountain pen. “ **I want you to have this** ,” he says, curtly nodding before retreating across the room towards a giggly George Mukherjee who gestures towards Alexander’s shoes.

Specifically, the chalky smudge that could only be procured on kitchen roofs.

“His handwriting is atrocious,” Daisy comments, leaning over to peer at the paper. “He’s unsuitable turtles all the way down. Your father is going to have your head.”

I tune out her teasing banter, because all I can see is a rather blotchy address with ‘Yours, Alexander’ underneath, and brackets that enclose the words ‘address any letters to the head of the staff, her name is Bridget, and she will give it to me’.

_ No one has to know _ , he writes, and I feel like I might burst.


End file.
